Jacob wants PUC to rethink Powerlink

The head of the county government says state regulators should reconsider the Sunrise Powerlink because residents in the East County community of Alpine didn’t know how big a disruption its construction would cause.

San Diego Gas & Electric didn’t let on to Alpine business owners how the line would affect the town’s main thoroughfare, said Dianne Jacob, who chairs the county board of supervisors.

“There’s a huge void in the information that’s been available,” Jacob said.

In a letter to Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, Jacob asked that residents be given a chance to voice their concerns.

SDG&E said people were told about the project and it was thoroughly reviewed the first time, and Jacob’s concerns don’t warrant reopening the application.

Residents had a chance to be heard during an extensive application process, spokeswoman Jennifer Briscoe said.

A PUC spokeswoman declined to comment on the letter.

The Sunrise Powerlink is a $1.9 billion, 120-mile high-voltage power line designed to connect San Diego with the Imperial Valley. Most of the line will be on huge towers through the back country, but 6.1 miles would go underneath Alpine Boulevard.

SDG&E says it is needed to bring in power from the sun, the wind and geothermal plants to make electric service more reliable and to lower costs. Opponents said it’s too expensive and needlessly destroys pristine parts of the county.

The California Public Utilities Commission approved the line in December 2008, and the federal Bureau of Land Management approved it the following month. Both those approvals have been challenged in court and with federal officials by opponents who say the line wasn’t properly considered and the go-aheads violated environmental laws.

SDG&E has yet to receive approval from officials with the Cleveland National Forest, but the utility says it is confident approval will come in time for construction to begin this summer.

Jacob accused the company of playing bait-and-switch with residents as the line, including dozens of route variations, was considered from 2005 to 2008.

The company wanted to put the line through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and North County, and for years insisted a southern route was not feasible.

However, in mid-2008, when it appeared the state would reject the preferred route, SDG&E said it would build it through East County, snaking north and south of Interstate 8, and then into Alpine and Lakeside.

That, Jacob said, left residents flat-footed, because they assumed the line wouldn’t come nearby.

“The simultaneous analysis of multiple routes in the far northern and far southern portions of an enormous region served to confuse, confound and distract property owners who would otherwise have commented, and in fact, desire to do so now,” Jacob said.

Now, she said, the town faces two years of excavation along of its main thoroughfare, which she calls critical to the economy.

“It will make Alpine a ghost town,” she said.

More than 400 people attended an Alpine meeting Jacob organized on Sunrise this month. The commission needs to hear from them, she said.

Whether that will happen seems unlikely.

Commissioners have rejected a prior request to reconsider the Sunrise decision. Such decisions are typically final unless a court finds that the commission abused its discretion.

SDG&E’s Briscoe said people in East County have been heard. Beginning in September 2006, more than two years before the PUC decision, people in Alpine were told by mail, through news articles and in public meetings that the line could be built through town, she said.

And while the utility will handle claims from people who can prove the project has hurt business, other areas, including downtown San Diego, have survived similar projects, she said.